He was the smooth voice of sports history, a welcome companion who brought listeners
Ted Williams' last home run, the first Super Bowl and dozens of other dramatic
moments.

Curt Gowdy, who died Monday February 20th, after a long
bout with leukemia at the age of 86, told generations of Americans about the games
they loved from the broadcast booths at 13 World Series, 16 baseball All-Star
Games, numerous Rose Bowls and the 1976 Montreal Olympics.

"He was
the first superstar of sports television because he did all of the big events,"
veteran NBC broadcaster Dick Enberg said. "He's the last of the dinosaurs. No
one will ever be the voice of so many major events at the same time ever again."

It
all started for Curt Gowdy as he sat on a box, with his microphone
on another box, for his first play-by-play a six-man football game
in Cheyenne, WY, in subzero temperatures in 1944.

Before cable television
spawned a new breed of announcer, who use shouts and catchphrases instead
of subdued sounds and straightforward description, Gowdy was a star who just wanted
to tell a story, a well-liked man who stayed that way as his fame grew and
brought a warm feel to the broadcast booth, his commentary full of good humor
and enthusiasm.

Gowdy once said, "I tried to pretend that I was sitting
in the stands with a buddy watching the game, poking him in the ribs when
something exciting happened. I never took myself too seriously. An announcer is
only as good as yesterday's performance."

In his 1960 essay "Hub Fans
Bid Kid Adieu," published in The New Yorker, John Updike said Gowdy sounded
like "everybody's brother-in-law."

Gowdy spent 15 years as the Boston
Red Sox's main play-by-play announcer from 1951-65. He left the Red Sox for a
10-year stint as the baseball broadcaster on NBC's "Game of the Week" through
1975. In that time he also covered many NCAA basketball Final Fours and Super Bowls
including Super Bowl I and III.

"He's certainly the greatest play-by-play
person up to this point that NBC sports has ever had," NBC Universal
Sports chairman Dick Ebersol said. "He literally carried the sports division at
NBC for so many years on his back.He was a remarkable talent, and he was an even
more remarkable human being."

An avid outdoorsman, the native of
Green River, WY was also host of the "American Sportsman" series on ABC from the
early 1960s into the 1980s. On that program, former presidents Jimmy Carter
and George H.W. Bush appeared in fishing segments. Others guests on the fishing
and hunting show were Williams, quarterback Terry Bradshaw, singer Bing Crosby,
actor Andy Griffith and comedian Jonathan Winters.

George Bodenheimer,
president of ESPN and ABC Sports, said Gowdy's contributions were "indelible."
He said Gowdy was a "pioneer in our business and set the highest of standards
for everyone in sports broadcasting."

Winner of numerous broadcasting
awards, Curt Gowdy covered minor-league baseball and did recreations of major-league
games on KOMA radio in Oklahoma City. He later owned radio stations
in Massachusetts, Wyoming, Florida and New Hampshire.

In 1949, he joined
Mel Allen to broadcast games of the New York Yankees and, two years later,
he became the No. 1 broadcaster for the Red Sox. "His distinct voice was a comfort
to a generation of baseball fans in New England and throughout the country,"
Commissioner Bud Selig said.

"To fans in New England in the 1950s
and '60s, his was the voice that told the stories of the Red Sox to a generation
of fans," said Charles Steinberg, the Red Sox's executive vice president for
public affairs. "He was the voice under the pillow."

While youngsters
curled up beneath their sheets with a transistor radio under their pillows,
the players Gowdy told them about developed an admiration for him.

Johnny
Pesky, a former Red Sox infielder and now an 86-year-old spring training
instructor for the team, spent his last seasons with the team from 1949-52 with
Gowdy broadcasting his games.

"He was in the clubhouse before the
game. He was really easy to speak to," Pesky said at the Red Sox spring training
complex. "He dressed well. He was a peach of a guy."

Curt Gowdy became
friends and fished with Williams and made the memorable call on the slugger's
home run in his final major-league at bat on September 28, 1960:

"Everybody
quiet now here at Fenway Park after they gave him a standing ovation
of two minutes knowing that this is probably his last time at bat," Gowdy said.
"One out, nobody on, last of the eighth inning. Jack Fisher into his windup,
here's the pitch. Williams swings and there's a long drive to deep right! The
ball is going and it is gone! A home run for Ted Williams in his last time at bat
in the major leagues!"

There were also descriptions remembered for
less pleasant reasons.

On November 17, 1968, Gowdy broadcast the Raiders
43-32 win over the Jets in which Oakland won with two touchdowns in the
last minute. He described those plays, not knowing viewers didn't see them because
NBC had cut away to fulfill a contractual obligation to show "Heidi," the classic
children's story.

He called the last of his 10 consecutive World
Series in 1975 between Cincinnati and Boston before being replaced by Joe Garagiola.
During Game 3, he and broadcast partner Tony Kubek said umpire Larry
Barnett should have called Reds pinch-hitter Ed Armbrister out for interfering
with catcher Carlton Fisk, a 10th-inning bunt that led to Cincinnati's victory.

NBC
said its decision to replace Gowdy didn't result from Barnett's
statement that Gowdy and Kubek were responsible for death threats against him
and his family. If Gowdy called a game, Enberg said, "you knew it was a major event."

Curt
Gowdy broadcast part of a Red Sox game at Fenway Park in
2003 as part of an ESPN promotion and was honored there last August 28 before
a game.

He was inducted into the broadcast wing of the Baseball Hall
of Fame in 1984 and into the American Sportscaster's Hall of Fame in 1985. The
Curt Gowdy State Park was established in Wyoming in 1971.

Gowdy is
survived by his wife, Jerre; daughter Cheryl Ann; sons Trevor and Curt Jr., the
Vice President of Production and Executive Producer of the Mets new network SportsNet
New York; and five grandchildren.

A funeral is scheduled for
Saturday at Trinity Church in Boston, with a private burial to follow.